Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Occult

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This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

New article possibilities

The following list contains the names of people with entries in the "Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism" who don't appear to have Wikipedia entries yet:

• Adam Haslmayr
• Alice Ann Bailey
• Allen Kardec
• Arturo Reghini
• Franz Xaver von Baader
• Boris Mouravieff
• Bô-Yin-Râ
• Christian Heinrich Haugwitz - not Christian Graf von Haugwitz?
• Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement
• Edouard Schuré
• Élus Coëns
• Elxai
• Eugène Léon Canseliet
• Fedeli d’Amore
• François Foix-Candale
• François-Charles Barlet
• Frédérick-Rodolphe Saltzmann
• Gérard Dorn
• Giovanni da Correggio
• Guillaume Sedacer
• Gurdjieff tradition
• Hermann Fictuld
• Jacques François Etienne le Boys des Guays
• Jacques Gohory
• Jacques-Étienne Marconis de Nègre
• Jean-Marie Ragon de Bettignies
• Jean-Philippe Dutoit-Membrini
• Johann Friedrich von Meyer
• Joseph-Aimé Péladan
• Justin the Gnostic
• Karlfried Dürckheim
• Leopold Ziegler
• Louis Charbonneau-Lassay
• Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d’ Orléans
• Marcus the Magician
• Melchior Douzetemps
• Niklaus Anton Kirchberger
• Oscar Rudolf Schlag
• Paul Sédir
• Paul-François-Gaspard Lacuria
• Raimondo di Sangro di San Severo
• Satornilus
• Sincerus Renatus
• Stanislas de Guaïta

Progress

So I've gone through the whole list and discovered that many of the subjects have corresponding articles under slightly different titles. I've created redirects for most of those (given the likelihood of people searching for the same title as the Dictionary) and will have a look and creating some new articles. Stalwart111 11:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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Is the Paranormal pseudoscience

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Is_the_paranormal_pseudoscience.3F. Unomi (talk) 05:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Abrahamic Religion and Magic

This section of the Religion and Magic article needs help. There is enough information about the intersection between "Abrahamic" religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to write several books (and the evidence is that several books have been written on these subjects). But the article is so poorly sourced and poorly organized that it literally gives almost zero practical information. No offense to anybody here who has participated in that section's development. I'd be happy to help, but I'd rather do this in tandem. Most of the articles that address these matters end up quoting Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (by the way, for anybody interested in the Occult, this is a must-read). But articles abound. I will list a few in time. Right now, I have no time. :-D --Kabir Talat (talk) 16:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Just for fun, http://www.gnosis.org/ahp.htm and http://www.gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm are good links that are well-sourced (and soundly denounced by BYU's Prof. Hamblin, for whom I have a good deal of respect). I'm not suggesting that these links form the lion's share of the info in the referenced section - that would be POV in the extreme. I just remembered the links as I was typing the above. At most, Mormonism's treatment of magic/Gnosticism/Hermeticism should take up a paragraph or less. --Kabir Talat (talk) 17:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Occult articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Occult articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Grace Sherwood, Witch of Pungo FAC

This article is here as a FA candidate. Would appreciate commentary to help improve the article. Thank you. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Now it's in Featured article review, I had to do it, can any editor fix this mess up? Secret ^account 03:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Misguided requested move to Final Fantasy character to Sephiroth over disambig page

Folks, there's an attempt being made to move the Final Fantasy character over Sephiroth by people who don't understand transliteration of Hebrew into English. Weigh in here. Yworo (talk) 02:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

LOL, nice catch. Fortunately, the discussion has ended. Personally, I think there should not be a disamb. The page should go to the kabalistic meaning, with a hat note about the FF character. --Legion fi (talk) 00:07, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Joining this WikiProject

Hello all, I'm not new to wikipedia but I'm trying to become more involved. Is there a specific way to join this WikiProject? I'm knowledgeable in a few areas of the occult and want to do a little more than just edit minor errors here and there. So yeah, is there a way to actually join wikiprojects or do you just add it to your watchlist and edit at will?

K (talk) 16:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Well hello there, and welcome. Yes, basically you just add your name to the project and start contributing. How? Well, there are a lot of ways: creating new articles, assessing existing ones, cleaning up other, getting references to poorly cited ones. This project is pretty open in their task, so do whatever you wish to do, and if you need second opinions, comments, or want to bring something to consideration just post it here. --Legion fi (talk) 08:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Individual Tarot cards

Hi, I am returning to an old topic for many reasons I think most of the individual tarot cards should be merged into other articles. ie Two of Cups Three of Cups into Suit of cups. Then replace a redirect. There probably needs to then be a page on interpretation or divination.

The maintenance of these pages tends to be done in a group and it takes a while just to tag them, still working on adding BTG tags. I wanted to let the relevant groups know of my suggestion before taking any actions. Tetron76 (talk) 17:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it is good to have individual pages for the individual cards. However it would be great to have more detail on the cards. Some of the Major Arcana cards lack every detail. Arided (talk) 19:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Request for input in discussion forum

Given the closely linked subjects of the various religion, mythology, and philosophy groups, it seems to me that we might benefit from having some sort of regular topical discussion forum to discuss the relevant content. I have put together the beginnings of an outline for such discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting, and would very much appreciate the input of any interested editors. I am thinking that it might run over two months, the first of which would be to bring forward and discuss the current state of the content, and the second for perhaps some more focused discussion on what, if any, specific efforts might be taken in the near future. Any and all input is more than welcome. John Carter (talk)

_{Automated message by Project Messenger Bot from John Carter at 15:44, 5 April 2011}

I've already watchlisted the meeting page. Unfortunately I don't see many topics in which I can contribute. --Legion fi (talk) 15:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If you know of any topics which are insufficiently covered by independent sources, particularly regarding recent developments, that would be useful information. And, at present, the first page is just a basic discussion page. If there are any ideas you would have to put forward, please feel free to add them as well. John Carter (talk) 16:00, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Relevant content

I am going through The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, by John Michael Greer, on the basis that items included as separate entries in that book should be discussed, in some form or other, even if only as a redirect, here. So far, I have gone through contained of it related to the Cabala, which can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Kabbalah#Relevant content and the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Thelema. I am in the process of developing lists for other similar projects as well.

The one thing which strikes me as being perhaps open to discussion here is how the various topics of the Occult should be organized. There seem to be several WikiProjects relevant to the Occult, some specifically about "sub-sections" of what is called the Occult, others about aspects of the Occult which are also relevant to other subjects. Maybe some attempts to organize the relevant projects, indicating which topics are left to the "primary" attention of which project, might be useful. Anyway, a detailed list for this project will also be available, hopefully sometime soon. John Carter (talk) 16:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC) Sections of such a list, as well as separate lists elsewhere, follow:

Druids and Druidry: Abaris; Abred; Alban Arthuan; Alban Eiler; Alban Elued; Alban Gates; Alban Heruin; Ancient Order of Druids; Archdruid; Armanen; Ar nDraiocht Fein; Bard; Barddas; Castle of Heroes; Celtic reconstructionism; Ceugant; Circles of Existence; Colligny calendar; Degrees (of fraternal organizations); Druidic witchcraft; Druidry; Druids; Druids of Pontyprydd; Edward Davies; Edward Williams; Faery; Fraternal lodge; Gerald Gardner; Goddess; Grove; Gwynfydd; Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; Holy Grail; John Toland; Kindred of the Kibbo Kift; Mabinogion; Merlin; Mistletoe; Neopaganism; New Reformed Druids of North America; Nwyvre; Oak; Ogham; Ogham tree-calendar; Order of Bards Ovates and Druids; Ovate; Owen Morgan; P. E. I. Bonewits; Pheryllt; Philip Peter Ross Nichols; Pythagoras; Reformed Druids of North America; Reincarnation; Three Worlds; Triads; United Ancient Order of Druids; Wicca; William Stukeley; Woodcraft;

Grimoires: The Arbatel of Magic; Book of Secrets; Book of the Death of the Soul; Dragon Rouge; The Goetia; Grand Grimoire; Grimoire; Key of Solomon; Lemegeton; Picatrix; The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage; Sworn Book of Honorius;

Like I said at the Kabbalah talk page, please do not construe this as saying that each and every article listed here must necessarily be created. But I do think that it makes sense to at least include some material relevant to Druids and Druidry to the above articles if it isn't already there, to create articles for those topics which have substantive content available for them, and redirects for those which would best be included in other articles. John Carter (talk) 17:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

So, what you are saying is that information from the cited Encyclopedia should be added to the relevant articles and redirects made? If that is the case, could I have a link to an online version or at least a full bibliographical reference for the encyclopedia?. I see many of the topics are covered, and I'm interested in reviewing the source specially for information regarding the grimoires. Thank you. --Legion fi (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

To a degree, the above is correct. Basically, I think we should try to ensure that the material to be found in any of the more reliable relevant encyclopedias should be, at least, contained somewhere here. In a lot of cases, particularly the shorter articles, redirects would probably be sufficient. And, FWIW, there are still a lot of articles, on such subjects as magic, divination, and other matters which I haven't listed above. I don't know if there is an online version, unfortunately, because of the recent nature of the work in question. I could, however, get the information on the grimoires, including the references cited, and try to relay it to yuo. John Carter (talk) 18:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Waite's article

Your assistance is requested in a move discussion as to the naming of Arthur Waite's article. Mangoe (talk) 10:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Richard Kaczynski

I would like to inform you of a Nomination for Deletion of the article about Richard Kaczynski, biographer of Aleister Crowley, which may be of interest to members of this project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Richard_Kaczynski_%282nd_nomination%29 Rosencomet (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Alchemy

{{Alchemy}} has been nominated for deletion. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm on it; thanks! — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 14:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Alchemy & Scope

Howdy. Alchemy related articles are often tagged as being within the scope of this project. From the scope description here, I'm not sure if this is always the best place for them. That being said, are there editors here that are knowledgeable on alchemy topics? The template listed above, Adam McLean and Outline of Alchemy are needing more-urgent love. I'm going to do my best to work on these, but wanted to open up the discussion and request for assistance. Thanks. Car Henkel (talk) 01:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm of a mind that there needs to be a coordination project for pre-science topics that spawned sciences... geomancy, astrology, alchemy, natural philosophy, which still exist as separate from their science progeny; and thus separate from WikiProject History of Science. Ofcourse, of these, astrology already has its own wikiproject... 76.65.128.132 (talk) 13:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

A case could be made for including these in projects related to proto-sceince, occult, philosophy, medicine, chemistry etc. IMO it is its own beast which overlaps all these aspects, so doing something similar to the astrology project seems right. (As an aside: I find myself hesitant to tag alchemy articles as "occult" (hidden/secretive) since they most-often are not.) The important bit I guess is to have it categorized in communities able to contribute on the topics of alchemy. Is this one of them? Car Henkel (talk) 18:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It theoretically should be, though WikiProjects aren't always as active as we'd like them to be. "Occultism" itself is a huge beast, and some of us here may be fascinated with Alchemy while others don't care at all.

Creating a WikiProject Alchemy could possibly be a bad move if it means taking the articles out of the scope of other projects that are relatively more active. You may want to have a look here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, if you're considering creating a new WikiProject. I've also seen "joint task forces" between projects, if that seems like a better idea. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 22:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

True. Wouldn't want to go that route unless I had reason to think it would be active. Something to think about maybe for the future. :) Car Henkel (talk) 02:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm currently the only active member in WikiProject Parapsychology (with the former leader blocked for POV-pushing on a major scale) -- it's pretty sad and lonely. :c — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 03:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

We have WP Science and WP History of science, perhaps a WP Protoscience, to cover these cases (alchemy, etc) 76.65.128.132 (talk) 06:16, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Occult will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles in occultism. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Father Ernetti's Chronovisor

Is there anyone here who would be interested in helping me improve the article I created about the book Father Ernetti's Chronovisor:The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine? --RJR3333 (talk) 08:00, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Redesign

Hi folks, I'm going to be a little bold and do a redesign to help with navigating the project. If there are any objections, we can of course roll back the changes as needed. Phoenixred (talk) 20:16, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed MOS for Religion

There is now a proposed general Manual of Style for Religion and other articles relating to ethoses or belief systems at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. Any input would be welcome. I personally believe at least one of the reasons why many articles in this field have been as contentious as they have been is because of lack of such guidelines, and would very much welcome any input from others to help come up with some generally acceptable solutions to some of these problems. John Carter (talk) 22:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of alternative names for Metatron

The article List of alternative names for Metatron has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

List contains abundant unsourced information, links to deleted articles, "misspellings," and generally unencyclopedic content. It may reflect original research. Its notability is debatable. Efforts at improvement have not turned up reliable sources.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. ℜob C. alias ÀLAROB 04:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion

I have proposed that WikiProject Parapsychology and WikiProject Occult be merged, as per the templates I have recently added to the main project pages of both groups. I acknowledge that there is apparently a difference between the two groups, but that that difference seems to be more about the approach taken to given topics which are often of interest to both rather than in the topics themselves. Also, honestly, for those who haven't been watching my every move around here, I have recently been trying to generate lists of articles found in other reference works for individual projects, and the most recent highly regarded one I can find is Gordon Melton's 2-volume encyclopedia of the occult and parapsychology, which itself indicates that the differentiation between the two topics is sometimes difficult. Because of the often common nature of the topics of interest to both groups, even if the approach is at times different, and the fact that I am probably too lazy to try to break down the list of articles I find in Melton's book into separate lists for the two groups, and the recent inactivity of both groups, I think it makes sense to merge them in some form, although I'm not sure exactly how that might best be accomplished.

So as a concrete proposal, I propose that this page perhaps be moved to WikiProject Occult and Parapsychology, with perhaps the existing WikiProject Parapsychology be moved to a WikiProject Occult and Parapsychology/Parapsychology task force. I would myself support such a combination of moves and merger. John Carter (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm new to the project, but I'm happy to lend my support. It makes sense. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so, I think it should be the PSI task force of WikiProject Paranormal (considering I'm pretty much the last active member left) Help Me! Thus Spake Lee Tru. 14:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Strong Oppose: First of all, your proposal is based on a book being named like the projects you are trying to merge; just one book. If you find a book named "Encyclopedia of Crime and Parapsychology", would you try to merge those two projects?. Second, parapsychology has nothing to do with the occult. Yes, some topics may overlap, but the fields are different. Overlaping of projects is very common within Wikipedia. It helps to keep concerns separated. A topic may be relevant (to different degrees) to a number of fields. It is good to separate those fields, in order to check how much attention from the "experts" (I'm using the term loosely, to mean members of a projects) does a given article needs from each given field it is relevant to. Legion fi (talk) 07:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Further to my comments above, the above merge, and the other permutations being discussed on the WikiProject Council page, are becoming more confused and divisive with the passage of time. I strongly suggest dropping the whole thing, at least until the dust has settled, and then perhaps having a think about what to do with the esoteric projects that are no longer supported. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 10:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

General assessment

Just a heads-up. I've started working through the assessment backlog. If there are any issues I'll put them on the Assessment talk page, but I'm using this space to apologise unreservedly to the people I'm bound to offend. I don't have strong opinions on most of it, feel free to redo if you feel any of your pets have been mislabelled. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 19:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Circletriangle.gif

image:Circletriangle.gif has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 03:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

What links where concerning magic?

I drafted this note at Portal talk: Occult and moved it without change except here=>there. "There" refers to Portal:Occult --as displayed about half hour ago, before 0:00 (UTC).

We have articles on ritual and esotericism; also on chaos magic, sigil magic, ceremonial magic, all linked directly there. --And Magick, not linked there.

Ritual magic redirects to the main article Magic (paranormal) but those two [pages] are separately linked there.

viz. "Chaos magic is a form of ritual magic" --Portal:Occult, section Magick

What is the relation of "ritual magic" to paranormal magic on the one hand, and to the matters of the first sentence on the other? For example, are chaos, sigil, and ceremonial three subsets of ritual magic?

As I write, 28 pages in Article space --ie, not counting this Portal and pages in other named spaces-- use the redirect ritual magic. Someone who knows this subject will be able to improve some of them by choosing a target better than the main article.

I have improved many indirect links to the main article, by shifting the target to spell (paranormal), magic (gaming), and magic in fiction as appropriate. I will improve many that use the adjective magic(al).

 Done

I leave ritual magic to you all.

The three articles magic and religion, folk religion, and witchcraft may also be sometimes-valuable replacements for the target ritual magic ==> magic (paranormal). --P64 (talk) 00:19, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

This weekend I visited all 150+ articles that link Magic (paranormal) via redirects and revised most of them --but none that use the ritual magic redirect, see above. Then I changed several of the redirect targets. See Talk: Magic (paranormal)#Previous redirects to this page.

--P64 (talk) 17:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Occult Barnstar

Greetings, I have recently proposed the creation of an Occult Barnstar over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wikipedia_Awards#The_Occult_Barnstar. I have made this suggestion as many editors of occult articles face a barrage of abuse and complaints, and I know several who have left Wikipedia completely due to this. If you would like to support, or not, or just comment on this suggestion please head on over there. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I have proposed to merge this wikiproject and 12 others to a new wikiproject. Please see the proposal. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Poor quality of articles from archaeosophical topics

When I was at Guardian of the Threshold I noticed a lot of uncited content and a lot of material giving heavy weight to archaeosophy - which appears to be a branch of Italian esotericism from the early 20th century. I've got some WP:DUE concerns regarding this area of Wikipedia. I'll be sorting through a bunch of it shortly to see how much of it is a walled garden and working on adjusting the WP:NPOV balance slightly. I'll be notifying a few different noticeboards about this in case anybody wants to lend a hand / rein me in. Simonm223 (talk) 16:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

New article: Magical Treatise of Solomon

I started an article on the Magical Treatise of Solomon. I will add some more sources when I get home from this infernal waiting room (three bloody hour fraggin' wait for a smegging checkup?!?!). Everything there exists in one of the sources already in the article or mentioned on the talk page. It's the link between the Testament of Solomon and the Key of Solomon, so I thought y'all might wanna assess it or format it or something. I'm stuck with a phone keyboard that can't do the pipe thingy, so there's some potential linking that just ain't happening right now unless someone else wants to do it. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Dennis Klocek

The article Dennis Klocek has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references failed to find significant coverage in reliable sources to comply with notability requirements. This included web searches for news coverage, books, and journals, which can be seen from the following links:
Dennis Klocek – news, books, scholar
Consequently, this article is about a subject that appears to lack sufficient notability. Please see the plain-language summary of our notability guidelines.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Ghost Story, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by Evad37 [talk] 06:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Magical vs Mystical

I propose that occurrences of "magic/magical" should be changed to "mystic/mystical" in pages on religion. They both refer to happenings that occur or appear to occur in a way that cannot be explained or violates scientific natural happenings. Under conventional and more official definitions of "magic" it is more associated with when one party is trying to fool or convince another party. Mysticism is more general and appropriate. I understand that some people may think that by definition (or near) religions are comprised of people trying to fool other people. If you disagree with my proposal here because of that, go make sure your opinion is represented on atheism or agnosticism. These pages are about what the people who believe(d) in the religions believe(d).--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 01:34, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

This would be excepting the pages that specifically talk about magic itself (although I think they are outside of the scope of this project unless the page is referring to when religions refer to other religions as using magic. That's a different discussion however.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 01:41, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Mysticism doesn't necessarily involve believing something contrary to scientific law. Science can explain a vision of divinity as a hallucination, and the believer is capable of accepting that God chose to speak to them through the hallucination. The difference between a vision and hallucination is merely what qualitative meaning it is given, not the actual scientific mechanism.

For example, Shamanism and Tantra may be both magical and mystical, or one but not the other. Zen and Hildegard of Bingen are certainly mystical and religious, not magical. Transcendentalism is a secular form of mysticism. The Magical Treatise of Solomon and the Greek Magical Papyri are magical but (unless you belong to certain self-proclaimed "magical religions") not mystical.

What about religions that consider themselves magical religions, or at least consider their mysticism to be entrenched in magic, such as Thelema? And what does atheism or agnosticism have to do with this? Chaos magic has atheist and agnostic practitioners, and the New age movement has atheist and agnostic mystics (not skeptics, but atheism and skepticism aren't identical).

The concept that magic is inherently deceptive might apply to Stage magic, but supernatural magical practitioners (while perhaps lying to themselves and/or customers) usually do so in earnest, often tying it to their religion in parallel to mysticism. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:21, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

So I take it changing ALL "magic" references to "mystic" would be an over generalization. I concur. I propose based on your (Ian.thomson) comment that unless specifically an attribute of a particular religion(s) mystic should be used. The most prevalent article would be this one on magic in religions. Based on the the aforementioned cited definitions I believe that whole article should be rewritten. Also, this has to do with agnosticism and atheism only because I imagine that there are people that wouldn't mind trying to degrade religions by using the word "magical". You (Ian.thomson) have made it clear that some religions prefer their practices to be considered magic, but I strongly think that using "magic" generally is a violation of neutrality. There are several other pages that were written with "magic" instead of "mystic" where they should not have (Folk religion, Anthropology of religion, Ancient Egyptian religion, plus others).--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 23:21, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

"Magic" is an awkward word, but "mystical" is not an adequate replacement in most cases. Much of what the Greeks and Romans called "magic" (magia in Latin, γοητεία in Greek) was ritual, often without mystical connotations—for instance, cursing people. The current version of the ancient Egyptian religion article, which I wrote years ago, is flawed, but the religion itself is actually a good demonstration of why "mystical" does not fit. Heka, the Egyptian word that is usually translated as "magic", was regarded as the divine power that made rituals work—temple rites to give offerings to the gods, oracle ceremonies for the gods to deliver messages to people, execration rites to curse the pharaoh's enemies, or personal rituals to attract a lover. Those acts were pretty prosaic, especially the latter two. When I eventually rewrite the Egyptian religion article, I will use heka in most places instead of "magic", but to understand why heka is called magic, you have to grasp the history of the term. I'm not an expert on that subject, but I have studied it, and I think this outline is loosely accurate.

Greeks and Romans applied their words for "magic" to any ritual practice that they thought was foreign or otherwise suspect; the very name comes from the magi, the priests of Zoroastrianism, whose religion was mainstream in Persia but exotic to Greeks. People weren't at all systematic about what they called "magic", but the word's meaning was usually, if not always, derogatory. As in Egypt, a lot of what was called magic was fairly prosaic. Apuleius, for instance, once defended himself against a legal accusation that he had performing magic to attract the rich woman he married. In the late Roman Empire, some philosophers developed theurgy, a system of ritual that was indeed mystical, because it sought to achieve union with the divine. But Iamblichus, theurgy's best-known proponent, denied accusations that theurgy was magic, because magic was "a process operating within the bounds of nature, manipulating and exploiting natural forces rather than demonstrating the causative power behind and beyond them". Christians took over the Roman use of the term "magic", but to them, any pagan ritual was disreputable, so it was all "magic". That is the reason why the Coptic version of the word heka was used to translate magia, and thus why modern Egyptologists still refer to "magic".

In the Middle Ages and early modern times, the concept of magic underwent a very complex development. By the 18th century, its meanings could be divided into three broad categories: the ancient knowledge of pagan figures like Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus, whom the Greco-Roman world, and even some early Christian figures, regarded as admirable; natural magic, that is, doing stuff like alchemy or astrology that supposedly used the laws of nature; and the invocation of higher powers like angels or demons. The meaning of magic got even more confused in the past 300 years, as people increasingly divided thought into religion and science, and magic got stuck in the middle.

[Magic] has progressively become a mere label for a conceptual wastebasket filled with anything that did not seem to fit those alternatives (e.g. while natural magic might be seen as closer to science, it was not “real” science but something tainted with superstition; demonic worship was closer to religion, but it was “false” religion; and from the perspective of scientific progress, ancient wisdom could only be an outdated and superseded pseudo-wisdom). In other words, “magic” has come to be conflated with equally vaguely used concepts such as e.g. “the occult” (resp. “occultism”, “occult science”), “superstition”, “mysticism”, “esotericism”, “the irrational”, “primitive thought” (cf. “fetishism”, “idolatry”), and so on.

The term is so fraught with confusion and value judgments that Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer, in a series of conference books about ancient magic, introduced the phrase "ritual power" to replace it. I don't know that it has caught on. In any case, there is no term that can substitute for "magic" in all its meanings. "Ritual power" wouldn't work for many of the medieval and modern uses of the term, which often aren't rituals. "Mysticism" doesn't work for many cases, like the prosaic ancient rituals. And some articles, like magic and religion, must use "magic", because they are supposed to describe this very problem with definitions. A. Parrot (talk) 01:31, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

@A. Parrot:: Excellent.

@Funkamatic:: There's the problems that:

• just because something is important in mainstream religion doesn't mean that it won't have additional or alternative interpretations for magicians
• a part of a mainstream religion sometimes is important to understanding broader magical thinking (even if it offends the sensibilities of some of that religion's followers)
• mysticism usually has a marked lack of material benefit (and little, if any, material ritual) while magic is very much material (both in terms of supposed benefit and in ritual)
• some religions describe themselves or their rituals as magical, and it would be inaccurate to pretend they do not. This is in no way an affirmation of any real magic, any more than describing theistic or nontheistic religions as such.

To replace "magical" with "mystical" would make as much sense as replacing "ritual" and "worship" with "meditation." Ian.thomson (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Alright. I see your points and agree in most cases. I believe that I could concede to use "mystic" when there is no physical materials and "magic" when there are. It appears that among specialists such as yourselves using the word magic and its derivatives has a special meaning. I hold that using the word magic in instances where magic is not specifically believed in it should not be used as the layperson reading the article may misinterpret. If there is a special definition of "magical" (such as when Ian.thomson here says "magical thinking") among experts than I propose an article explaining the definition be made and referred to in the articles. I am going to stand by my opinion unless someone can show me a conventional or official definition of "magic" that matches its use here. Honestly, that's why I started this dispute because I am not an expert, and I perceived the articles that I mention here are misleading. I may be wrong, but I need proof that I'm wrong; again and specifically this is a reference to a conventional and/or official definition of "magic" that fits in its use in these articles.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 05:45, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

There is an article on magical thinking, which is linked in anthropology of religion and folk religion. Those articles are practically guaranteed to need work, because they're such broad and difficult subjects, but the linked article does explain what "magical thinking" means. I can probably rewrite and rearrange the magic/heka section of ancient Egyptian religion next week. Where else do you think "magic" is a particular problem? A. Parrot (talk) 06:40, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like a great start. I'll see about how this can be applied to my idea. If we do decide to keep "magic" then we'd need to be sure to mention/link to this magical thinking article.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 21:49, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

In many cases, that link will be best, but which term is most appropriate depends on the context. Magic in the Greco-Roman world specifically describes the practices that the Greeks and Romans called magic, and sub-articles like curse tablet should link there. Some modern ritual systems that use the term magic will have their own article on what "magic" means to them: magick (Thelema), for example, and chaos magic. And many of those articles will have to link to the overview article on the subject, magic (paranormal), which should address all of these problems with definitions, though I don't think it does so especially well. A. Parrot (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like we're getting somewhere with this conversation. I think my initial perception has been proven wrong, but the way I see it there are still some pages that could stand to be changed over. To support my argument (beyond the citations I used earlier) here is a current even that shows that using "magic" instead of "mystic" in religion is demeaning: click here. --FUNKAMATIC ~talk 14:16, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Pope Francis has also dismissed young earth creationism as the belief that God is a magician, and many Christians applauded him for it. If you think your initial perception has been proven wrong, why did you arrive at the conclusion that the consensus here is that "Magic is a specific type of mysticism," when:

• I've specifically argued against that (instead saying that while they can overlap, they are distinct)
• A. Parrot started off with ""Magic" is an awkward word, but "mystical" is not an adequate replacement in most cases. Much of what the Greeks and Romans called "magic" (magia in Latin, γοητεία in Greek) was ritual, often without mystical connotations—for instance, cursing people."
  

...? You appear to have only paid attention to what additional points you need to include to maintain your original position, rather than admit it was proven wrong. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:14, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

---

Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Books of Moses

I have created the article: Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Books of Moses and have added to this Wikiproject. I ask for a rating or importance of the article. It would be nice to know. Cheers! — JudeccaXIII (talk) 16:25, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I gave it start class, low importance, although I'm willing to argue about either. Unless you need feedback, there's no real reason you shouldn't rate short articles yourself. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 23:42, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:Occult tarot discussion

See: Category talk:Occult tarot. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 07:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Definition of astrology

There is currently a debate at Talk:Astrology#Pseudoscience_in_first_sentence_as_definition that may be of interest to editors here. zzz (talk) 02:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

FYI, it is on a matter that Arbcom made a decision on. They used astrology as the archetypal example of pseudoscience, so there's not really any chance that the word "pseudoscience" is going to be removed from the first sentence. Ian.thomson (talk) 07:38, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

FYI, the debate isn't even about removing the word from the first sentence. Editors can disregard the above ill-informed message from Ian.thomson, who did not take the trouble to read the discussion. zzz (talk) 08:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The thread was started on the grounds that defining astrology as pseudoscience in the first sentence was inappropriate, saying that you thought it was "pointy to put it in the first sentence of the article" and that the sources did "not remotely justify the absurd first-sentence definition Astrology consists of several pseudoscientific systems". Following that, you tried to argue astrology doesn't claim to be scientific (How many "astrologers of olde" actually claimed it was a science or scientific per se, and how many do nowadays?) -- an argument that is only relevant if you're trying to claim that astrology isn't pseudoscience. If you are not arguing for its removal from the first sentence, and you are not arguing that it is not pseudoscience, you have completely failed to get anything else across. It is only after being completely dismissed on both counts that you continued to try to waste everyone's time by pretending that you were arguing for something else that you've never once properly explained. Ian.thomson (talk) 09:38, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I specifically stated my compromise proposal more than once. I have no idea why you are apparently unwilling to read the thread before commenting on it. zzz (talk) 10:10, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I think it worth noting as well that while it is certainly saidby ArbCom is a pseudoscience, the question of whether that description is required for the first sentence is another matter entirely. John Carter (talk) 11:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Help with a draft article

Hey, I need some help with a draft article. Long story short, someone came in to create an article on Lucien Greaves, one of the founders of the Satanic Temple. That user is now blocked for various reasons and it seems unlikely that he'll be unblocked so he can help with the article. However he did start on a draft article for the Satanic Temple and I think that there's a lot of merit in having an article on this that is separate from the main article on Satanism. They're commonly in the news for various stunts, but I believe that they're independently notable. You can see the draft at Draft:The Satanic Temple.

Now that said, I'm not terribly familiar with the group and as such I'm relying a lot on primary sources to kind of make up the difference since some of the coverage for them does tend to be a little sensationalist. I could definitely use some help with writing the article. I've done quite a bit of editing to pretty it up and I'm aware that I'm not done yet - I've only covered a quarter of the available information of the group, but that's because right now I'm mostly focused on trying to build up the section about the group's history, which is a little spotty considering that there's not a huge amount of solid information out there about the group as far as their founding goes. I know that there was talk about the group starting as part of a documentary effort (led by an actor, which was why Greaves was brought in) but so far it's slow going.

Anyone want in? The article could probably stand on its own right now, but I'd prefer to have this a little more fleshed out before I approve/move it to the mainspace. I figure that if any area was going to know something about this group, it'd be this one and WP:RELIGION. I want to make sure that everything is covered as best as possible, from both angles. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:23, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• I've decided to focus on the Satanic Temple rather than Greaves since he might not be independently notable outside of the Temple and if he is, it'd be far easier to assert notability if we had an article for the Temple itself in the mainspace. In either case, the Temple looks to be the higher priority of the two. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:25, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
• I've since moved it to the mainspace. It still needs a lot of work, but it's complete-ish enough that I think that it would pass notability guidelines. I figure that having this in the mainspace would invite more editing from people more familiar with the group as a whole. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Warlock

The article at Warlock needs some help - it turned up as a stub to be sorted, and currently lacks a lead sentence, though the page has been around since Jan 2002, occasionally as a redirect. PamD 11:10, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Demonizer Zilch

copied and pasted discussion

Understand that these projects are for biblical/theological studies, for example, Supernatural (U.S. TV series) references biblical names, places etc. and visually does representations of actually occult sigils but is not taken is a series matter because the ideal of the show is just a show. Unless there is some sort of news worthy information that's making academics get excited and speculate on the particular manga/anime, the subject is irrelevant to the project. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 03:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC) @JudeccaXIII: The entire series is about demons, deals with a fictional Christian organization, and drops references left and right. These things exist in fiction as well and expanding project coverage is a good thing not a bad one. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:45, 23 October 2016 (UTC) I also want to add that the main character Zilch is possessed by Alastor. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC) I referenced Supernatural (U.S. TV series) as an example why it isn't on either Wikiproject, but for more clarity, it's not educational. Constantine (film), Constantine (TV series), and Supernatural (U.S. TV series), all of these media content mention satan, angels, demons, demon possession, sigils etc. but there not on Wikiprojsects Occult on Christianity because it's not educational, it's just media entertainment. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 03:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC) I don't see any policy/guideline related arguments in your reasoning so this is nothing more than a WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT discussion. As for education, by whose definition are we going by? If someone sees a mention of Alastor wouldn't the person who is interested look up or want to look up this info? It isn't confined to anime or manga entertainment. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:04, 23 October 2016 (UTC) If someone wanted to look up Alastor, he/she would simply click the BLUE LINK or go to the search bar. This is common sense. If you don't know what a Wikiproject is, see WP:PROJGUIDE. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 04:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC) I didn't read anything there regarding this situation, education in this case is subjective. If you want to start an RfC or amend a project's scope then feel free. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:26, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

The article: Demonizer Zilch, a Manga/Anime which mentions biblical names and its art work references occult symbols as Knowledgekid87 mentions...Does the article meet the scope of this Wikiproject? I have copied and pasted a discussion I had with the editor, and he/she has suggested I get input to resolve this matter. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 04:48, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Can we please keep this as a centralized discussion? Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard#Demonizer Zilch exists. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:43, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

• I think this would/should be viewed as an invitation to discuss matters there, rather than an attempt to divide the discussion. I've posted my thoughts about (not) including self-admitted works of deliberate fiction in this WikiProject at the Christianity one. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

new possibly spiritual/occult article: mathematicism, other comments

Mathematicism is a word in the Oxford English Dictionary that describes schools of thought that started with Pythagoreanism (mathematical mysticism/esoterism/occultism,) continued in Platonism (Plato was spiritual, academically found to have encoded secret messages in his texts, and paraphrased Pythagoras' mathematicism) to Neopythagoreanism (a more mythos-based Pythagoreanism influenced by Platonism) and Neoplatonism (maybe more mythos-based Platonism, which fixed Plato's maybe only error and is in WikiProject Occult, ‘WPO’) then later described to include Leibnizianism/monadology, ‘monad’ deriving from Hermetism & Pythagoreanism. The latest contemporary mathematicism is occultism also based on Hermetism, Gnosticism, maybe some other stuff, and does commentary on other occultism, though the article doesn't explain that yet. So, I'm wondering, if mathematicism includes this Pythagorean mysticism and Neoplatonic occultism (plus occultism not in the article yet,) then is the general article within the scope of WPO (and or religion/spirituality WikiProjects if you're in those)... and what about also at least the Gnosticism (some Gnosticism is Hermetic, and Hermeticism is in WPO) & Pythagoreanism ones if Neoplatonism is in WPO? I've been in this project many years, but haven't been that active on Wikipedia a couple years, and don't necessarily plan to be active past this post, but I thought others here might want to consider the article.--dchmelik (t|c) 13:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Missing topics list

My list of missing topics about occult and paranormal is updated - Skysmith (talk) 15:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Place of power being considered for deletion

Please feel free to take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Place of power. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

WikiProjecet Occult/Assessment update

I have updated the following information. Category:Occult articles with comments was deleted on May 4, 2016 and Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Occult articles by quality is no longer active. I also suggest that Wikipedia:WikiProject Occult/Assessment section be updated in more detail since there are other projects such as WikiProject Thelema, WikiProject Astrology, WikiProject Secret Societies that are also classified as occult subjects. I personally recommend a "portal section" be created like Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity (scroll down project page) for these projects on the main page of WPOccult to help guide editors to the correct project. If it doesn't really happen, I'm positive this project supports the other WikiProjects I mentioned and others like it. If anyone has any questions or recommendations, by all means, go right ahead. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Witch and witchcraft: two Wikidata items, and a problem

I have opened a discussion at Talk:Witchcraft#Witch and witchcraft: two Wikidata items, and a problem which is of relevance to this WikiProject. Narky Blert (talk) 21:42, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Sigil (magic)

It may be of interest to someone here that the Sigil (magic) page has relatively recently become mostly devoted to Austin Osman Spare and Chaos magic. --tronvillain (talk) 19:23, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Chaos magic fringe debate

There's currently a debate underway at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Chaos_Magic as to whether chaos magic is (a) a fringe theory, or (b) pseudoscience. I wondered if anyone else would be willing to lend their voices to the debate?

It's my belief that chaos magic is not a fringe theory, because a fringe theory is a theoretical explanation for an observed phenomenon that departs from the mainstream explanation. Chaos magic isn't a theory, it's not an attempt to explain anything, and there's no mainstream theory that it's departing from.

It's also not pseudoscience, because pseudoscience is when you have various scientific-seeming truth statements that are not actually supported by science, whereas chaos magic is entirely based on the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth. Therefore, by definition, it cannot be pseudoscience.

I've spent some time recently rewriting the page at chaos magic, along with some related topics like servitors and gnosis. My aim is to have some good, well sourced, informative pages on this topic, written in an encyclopaedic manner, of course with a neutral point of view. But I've encountered some opposition from people who would rather these topics weren't on Wikipedia at all, and are therefore trying to get these pages deleted rather than improve them.

The agenda behind having chaos magic classified as a fringe theory is that then the much more stringent notability guidelines come into play. So I'd appreciate some input from anyone who believes these topics should be covered in a professional, informative, encyclopaedic way, rather than just censored entirely. Rune370 (talk) 22:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

A discussion which may be of interest to the members of this project can be found here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Demons

Are Demons considered Occult? Or would they fit in a other project? Ziminiar (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ziminiar: Yes, this WikiProject handles topics like Demonology since demons are highly referenced in occult writings. Jerm (talk) 16:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Occult Barnstar

I'm sorry, I forgot to inform this project about the barnstar: Template:The Occult Barnstar. It's been a while since it was made, but I already added it to the resources page of the project. I usually inform a project first before I actual add it. I just want to know if this is of satisfactory though? Thanks! Jerm (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: & @VenusFeuerFalle: I'm not exaggerating when I say this, but you two are the only active members for this month. Same question above, is the barnstar fit for this Wikiproject? Thanks! Jerm (talk) 23:11, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I've no objections, we're not paper. But uh... Damn, this project is pretty much being carried by VFF, since I haven't really done much on my projects in a while. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:20, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: thanks, and I'm the one who marked the project as inactive and left the project myself because nothing was happening. Jerm (talk) 00:23, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jerm: thank you very much. It feels good to see people appreciate my edits, especially after some toubles some months ago. I started doubting anyone appreciate my edits and it would be better quite writing here. Yeh, the project is pretty inactive and often the articles lack reliable sources and scholary backup. Maybe because occultism easily attracts the young euphoric mind, but "occultism" is also part of human history and when we use anthropological research, studies of religion and folklore, we can improve the articles to keep up with the rest of encyclopedic articles often treaten more serious.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 14:45, 25 October 2020 (UTC)edit: I guess you have to add it to my talkpage. What makes sense, otherwise anyone could reward themselves.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 14:49, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Need Help with a Draft of a neo-Gnostic Occultist

Hello those who are here, I am looking for help about a draft article on William Wallace Webb who is a neo-Gnostic bishop who founded the Qabbalistic Alchemist Church, upon other churches who had relations with William Breeze, Stephen Hoeller, etc. KEleison (talk) 04:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Mysteries of Isis GA Reassessment

Mysteries of Isis, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Charles Bélanger Nzakimuena (talk) 07:59, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Shem HaMephorash has an RFC

Shem HaMephorash, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.

Knowledge query

Does anybody here know the answer to this question: Who first applied the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to the 72-fold name? Skyerise (talk) 20:39, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Major Arcana#Requested move 20 August 2021​

A request to lowercase the terms Major Arcana and Minor Arcana has been underway for awhlle and may interest editors here. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Eyes on Playback (technique)

Persistent vandal who usually attacks Chaos magic prodded the article. I removed the prod, but more eyes would be good. Skyerise (talk) 10:14, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Angels and gender

There's a discussion at WP Christianity about the gender of angels and whether they should be treated as non-binary. Enjoy! Skyerise (talk) 23:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alchemical literature

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Alchemical literature is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted. The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alchemical literature. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:58, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Astrology-related articles being discussed for deletion

Discussions are taking place as to whether the articles Descendant (astrology), Angle (astrology) and Derivative house are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether they should be deleted. The articles will be discussed at:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Descendant (astrology)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angle (astrology)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Derivative house

In addition, a recent proposal to delete the article Midheaven has been rejected, but any editor is welcome to start a deletion discussion about it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:31, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Enochian

I need someone to review the situation at Enochian. Another editor keeps adding stronger statements than the sources actually support. For example, a source reconstructs the possible Elizabethan pronunciation of this language. The editor titles the corresponding table "Dee's pronunciation" when the source never actually makes that claim, but rather the weaker claim that the table probably represents what the language sounded like to Dee. He is also repeatedly adding the category 'constructed languages', but when asked to back that up, cannot provide a source that makes that statement, instead providing definitions of the term, and claiming that is enough to support the category. Any eyes and editors willing to point out his error in understanding what synthesis is would be appreciated. Skyerise (talk) 04:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Request for comments at Talk:Astrology

There is a RfC about how to word the first sentences of the lead at Talk:Astrology#Request for comments: Lead paragraph which may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:15, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches

User:Buidhe has nominated Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:De Coelesti Hierarchia#Requested move 15 August 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:De Coelesti Hierarchia#Requested move 15 August 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 16:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Vampire

I have nominated Vampire for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 16:45, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on Witchcraft talk page

Hello everyone! There is an ongoing discussion occurring at Talk:Witchcraft#Ridiculous! which focuses on women who identify as a witch, their relationships to the term witchcraft and its practices (both historically and present day, see the short descriptor for a start, ""Practice of malevolent magic"), and whether the article is neutral. Historyday01 (talk) 17:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Witchcraft: Requested move

There's a discussion about moving the article Witchcraft to Witchcraft (classical) and moving Witchcraft (disambiguation) to Witchcraft instead, at Talk:Witchcraft#Requested move 19 July 2023. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 21:29, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Need help with an draft on an occultist scholar

I have discussed this with a helpful person on IRC, and they suggested me to contact your project. I would like to create an article about Draft:Georg Dehn, who spent a significant chunk of his life traveling through Europe and Egypt, searching in library archives and historical locations to track down and curate the complete Abramelin Ritual, which many in the occult domain (particularly Crowleytes) are familiar with. It received some renewed attention due to this recent movie depicting the procedure: A Dark Song. Basically, the Mathers copy that Crowley used is incomplete and Dehn tracked down the full thing.

He is already mentioned on a few Wikipedia pages. I have tried creating an article, but judging from the reviewer comment I (accidentally) put it into the traditional academic bin, which does not exactly work for people working on occult material.

What would be a more suitable bin for an occultist for the next submission? What more needs to be done for the article before resubmission?

Also, does someone own or know more (offline) sources? The original version of the newly curated ritual was allegedly published in handwritten (!) brochures sometime in the 80s, does someone still own a copy of these? Viv moira (talk) 21:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Our verifiability policy doesn't allow for using "handwritten (!) brochures sometime in the 80s" as sources. Sources should be in libraries. There actually needs to be some verifiable biographical material. A simple Google search reveals a different archeologist Georg Dehn, is this guy related? You might have better luck writing about the early-20th-century Dehn. Seems his interactions with the Nazis (was he one? not clear from a glance) have ensured that some biographical material is available for him. The guy you want to write about just doesn't seem notable: Just the one statement about him editing Abramelin repeated in a few sources. A one sentence article? There just doesn't seem to be anything to say about him beyond the information already included in The Book of Abramelin article. Perhaps you could supply citations for the citation requests there? Skyerise (talk) 21:58, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I had created the article as a stub because I have to be sure that more comprehensive research and editing work has a basic chance to be respected by admins. If you think creating the article as a stub was a mistake and it is required to prove notability for this article with a longer paragraph to show where this article could be going, I can do so, but this would take some more time. Viv moira (talk) 01:00, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

If you think that there is sufficient biographical material without resorting to original research. That is, are there enough secondary sources (primarily book and journal articles) to build an article from? Because only secondary sources count. Primary sources can be used sparingly, but non-independent sources (the subject's own works or publisher blurbs, etc.), don't count toward establishing notability. As for the admins, one can never tell what they will accept. Technically they are looking for 2 in-depth sources which are completely independent of the subject, which means that even if you can put an article together from many sources that each only say a sentence or two about the subject, it could still be rejected if there are not at least 2 sources that are "in-depth". Skyerise (talk) 10:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Typhonian Order

Typhonian Order (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) could use some work. Perhaps some material from Kenneth Grant could be merged. I've also added quite a few potential sources as further reading. Skyerise (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Kardecist spiritism#Requested move 28 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Kardecist spiritism#Requested move 28 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 08:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Request for input on Eastern Esotericism talk page

Greetings! For the interested members of this project, there is an ongoing discussion occurring at Talk:Eastern esotericism, which focuses on proposals of splitting, balancing the proportion of information regarding the main subject and whether the article is adequately written in English. Best regards! Bafuncius (talk) 11:40, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Liber OZ

Request for input at Liber OZ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Tyrannicide (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Skyerise (talk) 21:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Worship of heavenly bodies

There is a discussion at Talk:Worship of heavenly bodies#No Thelema which members of this project may be interested in contributing to. Skyerise (talk) 21:20, 26 August 2024 (UTC)